* Posts by Ardvark Master

9 publicly visible posts • joined 13 May 2016

Sysadmin's sole client was his wife – and she queried his bill

Ardvark Master

Some days you wish you had a sign that said "Restart your d*mn computer already".

Naughty sysadmins use dark magic to fix PCs for clueless users

Ardvark Master

What they pay me for

They don't pay me for what I do, they pay me to know where to hit the dang thing to make it work.

Welcome to the Wipe House: President Trump shreds climate change, privacy, LGBT policies on WhiteHouse.gov

Ardvark Master

"counted slaves as 3/5 of a person"

Sigh...the 3/5 of a person was a compromise worked out between the Northern States that did not want to count slaves and the Southern States that wanted to fully count them.

http://www.government-and-constitution.org/us-constitution/three-fifths-compromise.htm

Free blacks in the both the North and South were counted as one person, not three-fifths. Learn some actual history and context instead of repeating statements taken of of context

Ardvark Master

Re: The *people*

"So who has been disenfranchised?"

No one.

The Presidential Election is not a nation-wide popular vote, it is 50 separate state-wide elections to select electors. A system used by the USA for electing Presidents since Washington. Trump won enough state-wide elections to secure the required number of electors. If Hillary had actually bothered to campaigned based on reality, she might have won. Instead, she ignored the Rust Belt and spent her time in red states she thought she could flip.

The national popular vote is never mentioned in the Constitution. No person was disenfranchised. And Trump is now president because he campaigned based on winning the Electoral College and Hillary campaigned based on believing her own press.

Did last night's US presidential debate Wi-Fi rip-off break the law?

Ardvark Master

Re: Mr

"It gives you a right to expect that your unlicensed wireless devices will not experience "harmful interference" which the FCC has to date only defined as active technical interference."

Thank you. I appreciate the time you took in answering this. My work doesn't usually intersect with the FCC so I don't keep up on everything they do. Now I'm wondering if the FCC doesn't do anything, will Mariott and other such places start popping up with similar agreements essentially banning the use of personal hotspots.

Ardvark Master

Re: Mr

I would agree that a Faraday cage, blocking all RF would probably considered a legal, passive, method of denying access to external WiFi.

But that isn't what occurred here and is the central part of my question: does "intentional block or disrupt" only apply to active electronic disruption or can venue owner using, in this case, denial or revocation of credentials to force people to turn off WiFi hotspots be considered blocking or disrupting? What grants the venue owner the sole arbiter of who gets to use the unlicensed spectrum in that area?

Ardvark Master

Re: Mr

Thanks for the reply.

I appreciate the time you took for the reply. The non-interference rules for unlicenced spectrum would appear to be the basis of the Marriott decision. But if some operates their wifi hotspot in a public space without intent to interfere, regardless of the number of others doing the same, can the operators of the public space physically deny them the ability to do so by telling them to stop or their credentials will be revoked?

Since, as you put it, the air waves are public space, does physical disruption count with regards to the Marriott decision or was that strictly intended to prevent active electronic disruption? Many comments forcefully state the latter and if that is true than the whole article was just click-bait. But if everyone is to share the spectrum, how can any user usurp the power to block others by any means and then direct them to their own costly WiFi?

I honestly don't know the answer and don't really know if I could find the answer. But I would be interested to know, one was or the other.

Ardvark Master

Mr

"intentionally block or disrupt personal Wi-Fi hot spots"

I am curious, everyone who says they did not do this refers to the fact that they used no active electronic means to accomplish their goals. But does this "intentional block or disrupt" only apply if someone uses active electronic means to block access to other WiFi networks. Why is the act of passive detection and physical (in the sense they were told to leave) expulsion not a disruption of their personal WiFi hotspot? Especially since the the detection/expulsion has the real intent of pushing people to their own (the venue's) WiFi.

Setting aside the issue of multiple WiFi networks, If someone does know if this only applies to electronic blocking, I would be interested in that answer.

Label your cables: A cautionary tale from the server room

Ardvark Master

Re: Labels

I have a boss who would walk into our shop and want to know why no one was out working. I'd tell him that if we aren't in the shop, then that means stuff is broken and we are out spending the company's money.

Last week he came into the shop and said he was glad to see us in the shop not spending the company's money.

You can teach an old dog new tricks.